Plastic waste in composting of biowaste at HSY Ämmässuo Biowaste Treatment Facility

Abstract

This project is in collaboration with HSY Ämmässuo in order to investigate the plastic wastein the compostingof the biowaste. The investigation was carried out at four different places during the biowaste treatment process at HSY Ämmässuo facility. After separating from the biowaste then cleaning, the collected plastics were then analysed with FT-IR spectroscopy to conduct a list of plastic type. At the end of the study, there was no signs of bio and biodegradable plastic type found at their final product; however, some types of biodegradable plastic and some other organic compounds still remained at the end-product of the digestion process. Generally, the collected plastic waste took about 1-2% of the final product weight in which polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) were the most popular plastics and took up to about 90% of the total plastic waste at every step during the bio treatment process.